This background provides information which may be helpful in understanding the inventive subject matter. The act of providing such information is not an admission that the information, implicitly or explicitly provided, is prior art to the inventive subject matter. All publications referred to herein are incorporated by reference in their entirety. Where a term is defined, explicitly or implicitly, contrary to a definition of the term provided herein, the definition of the term provided herein should be understood to be the definition used to interpret the inventive subject matter.
Pour-over coffee brewing, whether performed in a commercial or residential setting, is nearly always done by hand. Ground coffee beans are generally placed in a paper filter or perforated stainless steel cone held in a glass, ceramic or plastic filter holder and the user gradually adds hot water evenly to the entire surface area of the coffee grounds. It is a task requiring skill, consistency and patience as a single cup can take 2-3 minutes to brew. Often, the water is added in several small pours with pauses in between each pour in order to maximize extraction.
When using the pour-over method, commercial coffee shops often brew several cups concurrently where a barista carefully adds water to each filter at the appropriate moment of the brewing cycle. Pouring water into each filter one at a time and requiring a barista to carefully monitor when to add water to the filter is inefficient use of a skilled barista. In addition, a busy barista may be unable to add water to the filter at the appropriate times, detracting from the quality of the coffee.
Previous attempts to automate the brewing process for pour-over coffee have been particularly inefficient, and typically require independent pouring spouts for each cup to be brewed. Requiring each coffee making station to use a separate pouring spout can be inefficient and wasteful when, for example, attempting to brew multiple cups simultaneously.
A variety of approaches have been attempted, for example the apparatus' disclosed in WO2000/057761, U.S. Pat. No. 8,752,476, U.S. Pat. No. 8,910,563, and US2014/0272047, but typically all require that the system be reproduced above each coffee making station in order to serve a plurality of pour-over coffee stations, which is inefficient.
Thus, there is a need for a system and method to dispense hot water in a pour-over coffee machine in a more efficient manner, particularly in such a machine brewing multiple cups simultaneously.